Developing a Healthy PsychoSpiritual Worldview

Through an individual, spiritual process of connecting with the imago dei, or image of God within us, which Jung called the Self, we activate our ability to live a more authentic life and become our own authority. We become more able to offer grace and compassion to ourselves and others, and experience the transcendent in our everyday lives. 

The soul-oriented perspective offered in the course is an opportunity to create a spirituality that is unique to you, connect more deeply with your purpose, better understand yourself and others, and become more open to experiences of the numinous. J. Pittman McGehee offers a masterful perspective, weaving together Jungian concepts, ideas from diverse spiritual traditions, and personal insights in this informative, thought-provoking course.

In this first class, Pittman McGehee provides an introduction to the psychospiritual worldview. According to Pittman McGehee, humans are multi-dimensional beings, existing in a biological, psychological, social, and spiritual context all at once. A healthy worldview must include all of these contexts. Additionally, much of our experience is informed by unconscious content, and a healthy worldview creates space to become more conscious of this. Pittman McGehee introduces spirituality as a resource for binding the dimensions of our human experience into wholeness, expanding our consciousness, and opening to the numinous. The Overview of the Psychospiritual Worldview is a foundational class for the rest of this course that contains Jungian reflections on spirituality as a resource for our individuation.

In Individual Integrity, Pittman McGehee explores the bicentric nature of the psyche, with the ego as the center of consciousness and the Self as the central, organizing principle of the psyche. In the individuation process, the ego must become subordinate to the Self. As the Self becomes the ultimate authority for our being, we are able to create a personal spirituality that is aligned with who we truly are. In doing so, we connect more deeply with our purpose and our individual integrity. Embodying this integrity creates a state where we are no longer divided against ourselves, instead, experiencing our own wholeness more deeply.

The Radical Nature of Grace explores the archetype of beginning again, which is available to everyone. Grace is the experience of letting go of something that is keeping you from being whole, and it offers an opportunity to transcend previous thoughts and attitudes. It is a gift from within, given by the Self, and is often constellated through ritual and symbol. Pittman McGeehee explains how grace is fundamental to self-compassion and good mental health.

The fourth class in this series discusses the mystery of the divine and how community is fundamental to our individuation. While many religious traditions have presented God in anthropomorphic terms and influenced by our wishes and desires, Pittman McGeehee offers an image of God as the mysterium tremendum, a great mystery that exists independent of our influence. In opening to this mystery, free from superstition and magical thinking, we become more available to experience the transcendent in our everyday lives and deepen our relationship with the divine. Pittman McGeehee also explains that mature spirituality is born out of community. We need relationships with others for our individuation process and for our psychospiritual worldview to emerge in a healthy way. Being deeply known by others is a spiritual experience that requires intimacy and vulnerability, and in opening to others, we also open to deeper connection with the Self.